


Nat's Question

by Russianblu



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Family Feels, Family Issues, Gen, Mentions of violence/character death but it's pretty vague, Original Character Death(s), Single Parents, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, but only in mentioning, dont forget theyre vampires, vampires are real and so are werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22803550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Russianblu/pseuds/Russianblu
Summary: Nat receives pressure from her friends to be accepted by them. Despite her insistence on being a non-conformist, she wants to fit in with her social circle. She extends that pressure to her dad and as a result, no one is happy. However, there are certain things about her family dynamic that are outside of her control. And if Nat can't fix it or pretend everything is okay, then she wants answers.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	Nat's Question

The question wasn't sudden in their conversation, but it was a bombshell for Trencil to hear it. He should have known from the nature of their talk in the first place. Nat had uncharacteristically come downstairs and asked if he wanted to "hang out and talk, or something." He had no idea what he had in store for him when he accepted, and what kinds of memories would resurface as a result of the question.

Trencil could remember the last time they sat down together like it was yesterday. The day of her thirteenth birthday, surrounded by her friends and a cake in front of her. He had insisted on decorating the house with more balloons and streamers than he ever has for her birthdays, and the browns and greens of his house were swarmed in a rainbow explosion. Trencil's outfit was dull and stained from mud and grass, and he stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the pink that Nat and her friends wore. Or perhaps it would be better to say he stuck out like a green thumb?

Regardless, the festivities had just reached its peak. Trencil had been singing the famed "happy birthday" song while Nat rolled her eyes and smiled at him. Her friends sang too, but purposefully out of tune and laughing the whole way through. As the song ended, one of them turned and whispered something to the girl next to her. They giggled softly and glanced at Trencil before turning their gaze back to Nat and her cake. Trencil could easily guess what they were saying if he wasn't so focused on Nat, beaming with pride.

"Why, I do believe it is time to make a wish and blow out the candles. Don't tell anyone the wish, my dear Nat, or the spell will be broken."

She concentrated, thinking of all the possible things that she can wish for and deciding on a single one. From somewhere amongst the table, he could hear a whisper between two of the girls.

"She should wish that her dad wouldn't be such a dork."

Trencil felt a pang in his heart and his smile slowly faded. What? He knew that kids could be like this but he was sure that Nat wouldn't be the type of girl to hang around those people. He looked over at Nat and saw that she heard the comment too.

To this day, he wished that neither of them did.

Nat thought for a few more moments, her brow furrowed. She blew out the candles. Trencil's mind raced with what she could have wished for. None of the possibilities were optimistic.

Her friends cheered and drummed their hands on the table as Trencil started cutting the slices of cake onto platters and handing them out. They took them gleefully, one of them almost forgetting their fork before diving in. Trencil stole glances at Nat throughout the whole ordeal. She would deny it if she was asked, but she was on edge. Trencil handed out the last piece of cake and began to walk away when one of Nat's friends stopped him.

"Wait, you still need to cut some more cake!" Trencil stopped and his ears twitched slightly. He turned around to face the girl who spoke. He made a great effort to maintain eye contact in the most non-intimidating way that his vampiric eyes would allow him.

"What for?" Trencil said. "There's more cake for you all if I go without any."

"It's for you and Nat's mom!"

Nat's mother. He hasn't thought about her in years. Too many painful memories to relive if he dwelled upon it. Trencil was glad that the subject had never come up until now, but did it have to be /Today?/

"Where is she, by the way?" There was a hint of mocking in this one's voice, given away by her sly smile and a glance at the girl she was whispering with before

"S-she’s at work!" Nat scrambled to say, placing her hands on the table and putting on a nervous smile. "Yeah! She has to work really late tonight, so she couldn't show up to the party."

Trencil listened as his daughter fabricated the story of a fictional mother. Allegedly, she was a nurse. One of the best nurses in the town. She supposedly worked late shifts because the hospital valued her too much and wanted her to be around during the dangerous hours. She even said that this fake mother was so much cooler than her real dad. She glanced at all of her friends for approval. They took the bait, and they started talking as a group about Nat's mother. And with a nervous hint in her voice, she said that she wishes she was here instead of her dad.

Stencil cut the cake with no expression on his face. The depression had already overtaken him. He was empty.

And the emptiness gnawed at him for months and months on end. Today, it consumed him.

He blinked twice, realizing he was staring off into space for what seemed like a split second to him. He glanced at the clock. Six minutes have passed for Nat. She had been waving her hands in front of his face for at least four of them.

"Dad. Dad. Helloooooo? Are you in there? Gosh, I didn't think this would mess you up so much, it was just a question."

"Where is your mother…" Trencil was still partially trapped in that haze, and he moved his face slowly as if to bring himself back into his body.

"Yeah, that's what I asked. You never told me anything about her. Or if I even had a mom in the first place!!" She threw her arms in the air in a lazy attempt to be dramatic. They fell to her side again and she sunk into the antique couch they sat together. She hesitated before asking another question.

"...Do I?"

"Yes, Nat- You do!" Trencil was startled by his swiftness in replying. His hands reaching out to her, palms open and comforting, as if to halt her train of thought. She quickly leaned her body away from him. He retracted his arms and cleared his throat.

"Yes Nat, you do have a mother. She…" Trencil averted his gaze from Nat. "She passed away before you were born." He wonders if that answer was sufficient enough for Nat's curiosity. He didn't want to dwell too much on-

"Ugh, that's a horrible lie." Trencil flinched at her biting remark. "You gave me the talk already, I already know that's impossible. Just tell me what happened, I can handle it. I'm not a baby anymore."

Ah. Right. Trencil has yet to give her the second talk. But she's already asking for him to give her the third talk, so it might be time to have both of them. But then again, it might be overwhelming for Nat to comprehend so much information at once, so he's torn. It would have been better if she had known from the beginning, but people within the last century have been alarmingly antagonistic towards people like him.

"Hey, stop mumbling to yourself. I can hear you, you know." Trencil hadn't even realized that he was saying his internal dialogue out loud. Nat continued. "Why aren't you telling me? How much have you been hiding from me?" She snarled at him. She needs answers, and she deserved to know about this long ago. He decided quickly that he needed to be as blunt as possible.

"I am sorry for not telling you sooner, my flower. I kept it in so long out of habit from the way I needed to be with the changes within society. I am transgender." In retrospect, he doesn't know why he hadn't told her sooner. He was her father, after all. She would have been understanding, but she just gives him a confused look.

"Wait- what? When? Huh?"

Trencil rehearsed this spiel before so he took a breath before explaining to her, "Gender and sex are separate entities from one another, so I identify as a gender different than the one I was assigned centuries ago-"

"No no, I know what it means!" Nat's expression twisted from confused to annoyed, then slowly back to confused again.

"I just... I always felt separated from that kind of thing. Like, I always thought it was something that only a few people do and was just something that people would make fun of for no reason. It never bothered me- other people being that way, I mean. It's just like... Something that I thought only happened on TV and... in-jokes my friends would say." She averted her eyes from her father and looked down at the ground. "And now it just feels really gross for me to have let them say them."

She paused, and they lingered in silence for a few moments.

"So... does that mean like, uh... was my mom a transgender too?"

Trencil chuckled. "Well, she wasn't /a/ transgender. She was also transgender like me, which made our parts compatible with-"

"EW! Gross! Stop talking! I don't want to think about that!"

"I thought you weren't a baby anymore and you could handle hearing this," Trencil teased.

"Y-yeah, well...! Ugh. OKAY, I GET IT." Nat let out a huff. Her flustered reaction helped alleviate some tension that was hanging in the air. Trencil smiled softly. She was becoming more rebellious at this stage in her life, and it becomes hard for him to remember that she still loves her. If he were to hear her say those three words to him, all of his doubts about his performance as a father would dissolve. In moments like these, Trencil could see glimpses of the girl that used to say "I love you!" to him every day. And he loves her ever so dearly, even more through the hard and uncomfortable conversations.

"I still wish you would have told me this sooner. This is the first thing I've heard about her." She fiddled with the zipper on her coat. "...Could you tell me more about her? Like... What did she look like? Was she pretty?"

"Beautiful. As gorgeous as the autumn sunset." Trencil closed his eyes and imagined her. He hasn't done so in years, but her face was as clear as the night sky. "She had fair skin, just like yours. A round face, dark brown eyes, brown hair, a small button nose. Her hands were soft and warm to the touch. She didn't mind my ice-cold hands whenever we held them together. She was plump and much taller than I was, so I suppose you carried on my short genes."

"You mean your jorts?"

Trencil opened his eyes.

"What?"

"Nevermind."

Trencil, despite his confusion, continued his description.

"She always wore skirts and dresses with blinding colors, and I hated it at first. But as we grew closer together, I began to tolerate it and eventually I enjoyed it. She loved to talk, and once again, I found it dreadfully annoying. But as time went on, her conversational skills cross-pollinated with mine, and mine with her. I noticed that despite not wanting to talk to people, I became quite the blabbermouth in her presence. And here I am, blabbering on once more." He chuckled.

"And she… She became content to just sit together with her lover under the shade, counting the stars and the leaves falling from the trees. Her gaze alone said a thousand words to me." Trencil let out a sigh, imagining the many days and nights they spent together.

There was a long pause in their conversation. Trencil was lost in thought, staring ahead of him. Nat waited for her to continue his description but after a minute her patience began to wane. She looked around the room, taking in parts of her life that she never gave more than a second thought.

The thing that stood out to her the most was the mirror. She didn't know until she was about 6 that Trencil didn't have a reflection because there were only about 3 or 4 mirrors in the house, most of them in the bathrooms. But not this one. It has always perplexed her as to why there was a mirror on this wall, especially because it was higher than Nat could see herself from. But now she has an idea as to why it's there, and why he would always walk past it with his head down. Nat took a few more minutes of looking around until she started unzipping and zipping her coat.

Most of the furniture that Nat didn't use was covered in dust. Trencil was either too sad or too busy with his flowers to do any sort of dusting. This causes Nat to sneeze constantly. She's afraid she might develop an allergy. Maybe she should start dusting. But she feels like she shouldn't need to pick up some of dad's slack, she's hardly 13! She just wishes that he could do it on his own. Or maybe if someone else could help… Nat lets out a sigh.

"Is something the matter, dear?"

Nat was startled. "Oh- uh… yeah, I'm fine, I was just thinking."

"What had your mind enraptured?"

Nat paused, searching for the words that would tell her dad how she felt. All the conflicts in her mind and all the things she wanted to say but never could. It would either hurt his feelings and make him feel worse or embarrass herself for showing more vulnerability than she needs to. Did Trencil start sleeping at night because of her mother or herself? What did she like doing? How had she died? What was her… The conversation had already begun at a raw point, but she didn't want it to cut any deeper. Trencil looked pained when answering a lot of her questions about her mother.

She did have a question on her mind though. About something that Trencil had been avoiding saying while talking about her mother. But… no. She's already asked so much. Maybe another time. For now, she settled on something that they could both agree with wholeheartedly.

"I just wish she was here."

...

"I wish for the same thing as well."

There was nothing left to be said. They sat in somber silence. The only sound that could be heard is the ticking of the grandfather clock.

...

"Nat?"

"Yeah?"

"You know I love you, right?"

"Yeah."

"And that I would do anything for you?"

"Yup."

"And that I would bring this entire town to ruin if it would mean keeping you safe?"

"YES. Stop being so dramatic!" Nat let out a disgruntled huff. "You love me, I get it."

...

"Is there something you would like to say to me too?"

…

…

After a few more moments of waiting, Trencil had given up on hearing any reciprocation to his affection. He changed the subject.

"Have you eaten anything since you returned from music practice?"

Nat shrugged and said sheepishly, "...I got some string cheese?"

Trencil looked at her surprised. "That is all? My dear, it's well past suppertime! I would have assumed you had already gotten the leftovers from the refrigerator. Let me fix you up a bowl of lentil soup." Trencil got up from his seat and began making his way towards the kitchen. Nat's voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Dad?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Um…" Nat worked up the resolve to ask the question that she wanted to know the most. It took her a few more moments to finally ask it.

"What was her name?"

Trencil turned and looked at her with gentle eyes.

"You were named after her." Trencil smiled.

"Natalia."

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first S4m fanfiction and my first fanfiction after taking a 3-year break. Wowzer! I wrote this bit by bit on the subway to and from my college campus, so I mostly completed it in my free time. 
> 
> This is a warmup to a larger body of work that I wanted to write and to see how well I could write characters whose speech patterns were already well defined. It will also serve as a bit of backstory to a multipart fic I'm writing about Nat and Trevor becoming friends. Thank you for reading this, I hope you enjoyed :^)


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